Royal Canadian Mint/Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
World Money Fair (WMF)
Berlin February 1-3, 2011
Presented by:
Dr. Hieu C. Truong
Executive Director, R&D Centre of Excellence
Royal Canadian Mint
Mr. Yann Boutant
General Manager, Signoptic Technologies
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
The Royal Canadian Mint in cooperation with
Signoptic Technologies has developed a unique
process to ensure the security of high value
denomination coins. This new method which allows for
coin recognition and authentication , at the fine edge
of technology, was filed for worldwide protection and
was unveiled at the Singapore TEMAN Conference in
Singapore, in May 2011. We would like to take this
opportunity to share with you the rapid advances
made since then, at this Technical Forum of The 2012
Berlin World Money Fair.
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Prior Art:
•Designs
•Size
•Color
•Geometry
•Metal look and feel
•EMS (vending machines)
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
We introduce the present novel technology, the
Digital Non-destructive Activation process in
Coin High Security which is taking coin
recognition and authentication to new heights :
Unitary authentication
5
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Summary of Technology
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
New Innovative Technology
Optics: Surface Morphology at macroscopic scale
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
The coin signature has the uniqueness similar to cell DNA
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Digitization
Example of Hexadecimal Signature
A8890B2F2009DBF55EA88C396C8813F760757455F8461BF81D49ACA065E61BFA56810D394F292BFAE1
BABC62E9E93BFDB5612668618593F87BA5EBAECE292BF99B53BCACDF96A3FCECD0DDCA99D92BF19
38EFFC283D94BFAB5C0CFC75CE67BF9BC46386A48396BFE922360F03938B3F23CFA123387798BF558F
83AF24C7A4BF0B21B00ACCA2A3BF4834D87A2E9F823FC232A26B37075F3FD82122F187E88DBFFF490
F99F0D9A73FAB10C829E405823FFA99124F5D99963F3BA5E6829A19A4BF606B01278367923FBDD6BE47
28E6823FC97D9B5525FFA33FB25067AC09E99B3F4FC454C025457FBF703D14A84C64A53F89100C086A
4EA2BFFCFC36818F3683BFBB6BE0E8E16B81BF7D6E7857546BA9BF6D2CE7EEB459943FFB8028C1CF
068EBFB6B70D7D2668A2BFD9DFCA74D359633FBBBCEC2248259B3F179B424A1DD291BF2ACBA21573
859CBF249F4F82C2789ABF40845261ACE077BFBD0467B82E1C7ABFAE040CEFE37F7D3F174D8A7BEC
D2AE3F0C2B1699982494BF43866EC5F2CE843F54D1DB51B1AF82BF25A81571A19262BFBCB01B71B742
A2BF62B51BA19C6778BFD438949587F8933FBFE980CADA2CB1BF40ECA1588700403F9AA77B497482AF
3F09E203267E298EBFBA4853F80BCC9FBFBABD885968D59E3FC9F58CD786BB6DBF0A71894ACC31833
F17D33DF507598D3F265008EFA2D384BF9DB9F0E611AA81BFF529FD481E528EBF12C17DE4581D763F4
8F9345AFBE9A2BF1C69970C93D280BF46B5363DF037A0BFF94C2EC80DF957BFA36A9BEA78BDB0BF44
A66F6A92CF6E3F8C37A5A1D5EF953FC1B5922A9FE592BF8ABB12B691249A3F00161F904D10423F46E5
A2EC946E80BFD680C1A02646A2BF49473F52A622A4BF51E89ACA768492BFB859C7FB552A79BF9A7A63
A47E1E9A3FA447ABEA1FC9783FA7125B38F4839ABFFE92EBC00CE08FBF9589AE3257F490BFF9AEB84
30E077EBF483DE9B53C4B74BFC54492B81E2787BFE6F6EF162C90B0BF9799C7BFACF295BFF2E8C089
99708C3FC8A260B183958A3F47271661E8D074BFF5746260E42C94B
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Principles: A state of the art technology to:
A. Register
1) By identifying, recognizing the unique areas of interest.
2) Activating those areas by exciting physical characteristics
with a specially designed sensor system
3) Calculating and transforming certain features into digital
codes.
4) Registering those codes as the unitary signature of the
coin.
5) Storing the signatures of the coins in a central database
for future data searching and matching.
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Principles: A state of the art technology to:
A. Register
6) By recognizing the coin, later on and generating its
signature through the same areas of interest
characteristics and same process.
7) Searching for a match of the candidate signature in the
central database.
8) Authenticating the coin as genuine or rejecting the coin
because it is false or inappropriate, not fit for use.
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Signature Generation
Small areas at the discretion of Mint, on both sides of the coin
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Components of Signature
1) Common Identifiers
2) Uncommon component: random and stable
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Signature Generation
Small areas at the discretion of Mint, on both sides of the coin
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
General Principles of Innovation Overview
-
Coin Identity Registration Phase
Coin Identity Authentication Phase
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Applications
• Circulation Coins
• Numismatic Coins
•Precious Metals Coins, Wafers and Bullion
•Security Tokens
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Level of Automation
• Manual: Table top model built for small operations of registration and
authentication
• New Application: The manual model can be used as a :
- Quality control tool to be used in the pressroom to verify that all
details of the struck coin are up and comparable to the sample coin.
- This instrument gives an objective assessment of quality and not
a subjective assessment; it is not dependent on human eye
evaluation.
- One unit is being built for the Royal Canadian Mint for use in
Winnipeg for Canadian and Foreign circulation coins quality
control.
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Level of Automation
Industrial machine for Central Banks and Mints
First High Speed Machine for registration of coins commissioned at the
Winnipeg facilities of the Royal Canadian Mint in July 2011 .
- Registration speed: 400 coins per minute.
Second High Speed Machine for registration and authentication of
coins commissioned at the Royal Canadian Mint in November 2011.
- Registration speed: over 700 coins per minute
- Authentication speed: over 400 coins per minute
To meet the demand of coin registration for foreign circulation coin
business the Royal Canadian Mint is building four more High Speed
machines to be commissioned in April 2012.
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Views of equipment built for coin registration
and coin authentication
Royal Canadian Mint, Winnipeg, Canada
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Views of equipment built for coin registration
and coin authentication
Royal Canadian Mint, Winnipeg, Canada
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Views of equipment built for coin registration
and coin authentication
Royal Canadian Mint, Winnipeg, Canada
Royal Canadian Mint /Signoptic Technologies
Coin DNA Technology
Launching of Technology
New Canadian $1 and $2 multi-ply plated steel coins
will have the DNA technology as a security feature
World’s First Coins with DNA Technology
THANK YOU
Contact information:
Dr. Hieu C. Truong
Executive Director, R&D Centre of Excellence
truong@mint.ca
Mr. Yann Boutant
General Manager, Signoptic Technologies
Yann.boutant@signoptic.com